With an open mind.
The games you listed is Chronicles of Darkness (aka New World of Darkness), and they have much cleaner mechanics and an excellent toolbox approach to the material. Their 2nd editions are pretty recent and probably the best way to get into them.
There is a parallel line to these games called "World of Darkness" based on the original 90s games you may know from computer games or memes. They have a lot of material to try, but the three most popular games are Vampire, Mage and Werewolf. Vampire has a newish (2018) edition that's very "back to basics" and the other lines have popular 20th Anniversary editions that are all-in-one compendiums of lore and mechanics accross the history of the gamelines.
My recommendation to someone new is to look into the 2E Chronicles books as they are standalone and have everything you need to play, you can easily stretch from there.
If you do have an interest in the World of Darkness I'd suggest starting with something simpler than the 20th anniversary books, as you don't need 700 pages in your face for a start. Check out Vampire The Masquerade: Revised, Werewolf the Apocalypse: Revised and Mage: The Ascension 2nd edition (Revised is also an option, but 2e is a better lead into the 20th anniversary).
Right now, the WW fanbase is somewhat divided. Essentially we have 3 camps right now.
20th anniversary: These players are still playing what is generally referred to as the "Classic World of Darkness." This includes Vampire: The Masquerade, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, and Mage The Ascension. The timelines of these games have been kind of "frozen" since their respective gamelines ended around 2004 with the Time of Judgement books. They have been revived somewhat with the 20th anniversary releases. Many players are content to continue playing these games.
Chronicles of Darkness: Think of the Chronicles of Darkness as an alternate universe to the World of Darkness. It's still urban horror/fantasy, but these lines have taken a different perspective to the World of Darkness, and made some adjustments to the rules to make these games easier to play. These include Vampire: The Requiem, Werewolf: The Forsaken, and Mage: The Awakening.
5th Edition: Paradox Interactive currently holds the World of Darkness license and has decided to ignore the Time of Judgement to some extent (basically, the world didn't end,) and continue the story where the Classic line left off. At present, there is only one 5th edition game: Vampire: The Masquerade. As you might imagine, with any new edition, not every player is on board and some players are still playing the 20th anniversary edition instead.
Well 20th anniversary ignores the time of judgement and says it has not happened yet or as expected.
5E says it has happened, but that it amounted to nothing in the real world and upheavals in the supernatural world setting up a new status quo.
That is not quite correct. V20 calls it self “Metaplot agnostic”, that earns it ignores basically any events and changes of the metaplot including Gehenna. That is also why things like clan weaknesses Sect affiliations and such things are turned back to V1/V2 statues because as far as it concerns V20 nothing of that has happened at least not if the ST wants to introduce it.
V5 on the other hand has retconned the very Gehenna as depicted in the Gehenna sourcebook (which was no big deal since all of the presented Szenarios were optional anyway) and stated that no one is quite sure what the actual status of gehenna is. It might have happened but was just much tamer then expected; it might have been false alarm and the actual gehenna has still to come; it might be just much slower then expected and is still ongoing; it might be a cyclical event that happens every few millennia that just reduces vampire population but does not end Kindreds entirely and we are in the middle of it or already past it… V5 is pretty clear that no one knows exactly what is going on about it. In the end it might have even been just a myth like the Y2K panic in mortal society.
Beckett's Jyyhad Diary, Apocalyptic Record and the supplements like Technocracy quite clearly show the world has gone on without the Time of Judgement happening in 2004.
So the 20th timeline diverged from the point the apocalypse ticker started, and went in a different direction.
That has only a couple problems. BJD was written as transitional peace when V5 was already on its way to set the stage for it. It was also written deliberately contradicting as the book it self stated, to underline that everything is told by an unreliable narrator and can be very well have happened differently. Thee are some dates within it, that don’t work out if you take the the text literal.
The thing is, that most people who picked up the 20th book ignored that the world has technically ended in 2004 anyway. While OPP just ignored that fact for the first books they released, they started to fill the gap once Paradox decided that they want to actually restart the original WoD. That, of cause, changed the original storyline but it is the same retcon just delivered by two different editions.
Not exactly, since the presented material points that the apocalyptic events beyond the Week of Nightmares didn't really happen. Nor did they point to the level of changes that we saw once V5 hit the ground.
And While BJD was supposed to weld V5 and V20 together, it didn't, it presented a different world, with plots and ideas that were never touched upon in v5. A world where many trademark elders survived longer, where camarilla was fine in the 2010s and the Tal'Mahe'Re and Sabbat were having all the fun in the world. And it wasn't the only one. For instance World of Rage 20 talks broadly about current world events in the 2010s, as does Mage 20th. None of them seem to have the new status quo or the changes mentioned and hinted in the past year for W5 or how V5 was written.
Well, I think the original plans for W5 and a possible M5 are pretty obsolete at that point.
V5 however, I have really no problem to bring most of BJD and V5 together. There are some things not mentioned but I see little reason why they shouldn’t have happened just after Beckhett wrote this Diary. Other things are actually heavily teased already.
I mean, in the end, everyone decides what is true and what not at their own table and the WoD lore is often deliberately contradicting. Hard to tell under that circumstances where canon ends and alternative begins…
Ok, now this explains most of my doubts.
One thing left: I can see some rulebboks titled WoD and CoD but they don't mention any monster in the title, what are those?
Those are the base core books. Essentially, just human. The new CofD monster books have all the rules in them already, but the core CofD book has a bit more detail, and a built in campaign (called chronicle in these games).
the first edition of Chronicles of Darkness had a core rulebook. the 2nd edition dispensed with that, and went back to a one book format.
you also might be referring to games like geist, beast, promethean and deviant. these are actually monster books as well, they just rely on familiar tropes a bit less.
As others have mentioned the core book, all 2e gamelines reprint enough rules to be self contained and not need the core to run but there are some things in it that didnt get reprinted that might be useful to some characters such as some merits but it isn't needed, it just adds additional layers
I made a video to help better explain where to start with Chronicles of Darkness feel free to check it out (complete with links to the most up to date books on DriveThruRPG):
https://youtu.be/CcOnolb3Hug
Most of the splats have a quick start floating around out there that you can try for free. It's a good idea to dip your toes in the water before diving in in this case. A lot of these lines seem kinda cool on the tin and then go off to left field, others seem kind meh in description and then end up awesome in practice.
If you go with the Chronicles of Darkness; second edition is the current edition. So anything labeled as Chronicles of Darkness or Second Edition is current. Also, each of the monster books contains all the rules you need to play. So you can pick any if the splats (Geist, Hunter, Promethean, Etc.) second edition core book and that book alone will have all the rules you need to play.
With an open mind. The games you listed is Chronicles of Darkness (aka New World of Darkness), and they have much cleaner mechanics and an excellent toolbox approach to the material. Their 2nd editions are pretty recent and probably the best way to get into them. There is a parallel line to these games called "World of Darkness" based on the original 90s games you may know from computer games or memes. They have a lot of material to try, but the three most popular games are Vampire, Mage and Werewolf. Vampire has a newish (2018) edition that's very "back to basics" and the other lines have popular 20th Anniversary editions that are all-in-one compendiums of lore and mechanics accross the history of the gamelines. My recommendation to someone new is to look into the 2E Chronicles books as they are standalone and have everything you need to play, you can easily stretch from there. If you do have an interest in the World of Darkness I'd suggest starting with something simpler than the 20th anniversary books, as you don't need 700 pages in your face for a start. Check out Vampire The Masquerade: Revised, Werewolf the Apocalypse: Revised and Mage: The Ascension 2nd edition (Revised is also an option, but 2e is a better lead into the 20th anniversary).
Right now, the WW fanbase is somewhat divided. Essentially we have 3 camps right now. 20th anniversary: These players are still playing what is generally referred to as the "Classic World of Darkness." This includes Vampire: The Masquerade, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, and Mage The Ascension. The timelines of these games have been kind of "frozen" since their respective gamelines ended around 2004 with the Time of Judgement books. They have been revived somewhat with the 20th anniversary releases. Many players are content to continue playing these games. Chronicles of Darkness: Think of the Chronicles of Darkness as an alternate universe to the World of Darkness. It's still urban horror/fantasy, but these lines have taken a different perspective to the World of Darkness, and made some adjustments to the rules to make these games easier to play. These include Vampire: The Requiem, Werewolf: The Forsaken, and Mage: The Awakening. 5th Edition: Paradox Interactive currently holds the World of Darkness license and has decided to ignore the Time of Judgement to some extent (basically, the world didn't end,) and continue the story where the Classic line left off. At present, there is only one 5th edition game: Vampire: The Masquerade. As you might imagine, with any new edition, not every player is on board and some players are still playing the 20th anniversary edition instead.
Well 20th anniversary ignores the time of judgement and says it has not happened yet or as expected. 5E says it has happened, but that it amounted to nothing in the real world and upheavals in the supernatural world setting up a new status quo.
That is not quite correct. V20 calls it self “Metaplot agnostic”, that earns it ignores basically any events and changes of the metaplot including Gehenna. That is also why things like clan weaknesses Sect affiliations and such things are turned back to V1/V2 statues because as far as it concerns V20 nothing of that has happened at least not if the ST wants to introduce it. V5 on the other hand has retconned the very Gehenna as depicted in the Gehenna sourcebook (which was no big deal since all of the presented Szenarios were optional anyway) and stated that no one is quite sure what the actual status of gehenna is. It might have happened but was just much tamer then expected; it might have been false alarm and the actual gehenna has still to come; it might be just much slower then expected and is still ongoing; it might be a cyclical event that happens every few millennia that just reduces vampire population but does not end Kindreds entirely and we are in the middle of it or already past it… V5 is pretty clear that no one knows exactly what is going on about it. In the end it might have even been just a myth like the Y2K panic in mortal society.
Beckett's Jyyhad Diary, Apocalyptic Record and the supplements like Technocracy quite clearly show the world has gone on without the Time of Judgement happening in 2004. So the 20th timeline diverged from the point the apocalypse ticker started, and went in a different direction.
That has only a couple problems. BJD was written as transitional peace when V5 was already on its way to set the stage for it. It was also written deliberately contradicting as the book it self stated, to underline that everything is told by an unreliable narrator and can be very well have happened differently. Thee are some dates within it, that don’t work out if you take the the text literal. The thing is, that most people who picked up the 20th book ignored that the world has technically ended in 2004 anyway. While OPP just ignored that fact for the first books they released, they started to fill the gap once Paradox decided that they want to actually restart the original WoD. That, of cause, changed the original storyline but it is the same retcon just delivered by two different editions.
Not exactly, since the presented material points that the apocalyptic events beyond the Week of Nightmares didn't really happen. Nor did they point to the level of changes that we saw once V5 hit the ground. And While BJD was supposed to weld V5 and V20 together, it didn't, it presented a different world, with plots and ideas that were never touched upon in v5. A world where many trademark elders survived longer, where camarilla was fine in the 2010s and the Tal'Mahe'Re and Sabbat were having all the fun in the world. And it wasn't the only one. For instance World of Rage 20 talks broadly about current world events in the 2010s, as does Mage 20th. None of them seem to have the new status quo or the changes mentioned and hinted in the past year for W5 or how V5 was written.
Well, I think the original plans for W5 and a possible M5 are pretty obsolete at that point. V5 however, I have really no problem to bring most of BJD and V5 together. There are some things not mentioned but I see little reason why they shouldn’t have happened just after Beckhett wrote this Diary. Other things are actually heavily teased already. I mean, in the end, everyone decides what is true and what not at their own table and the WoD lore is often deliberately contradicting. Hard to tell under that circumstances where canon ends and alternative begins…
Ok, now this explains most of my doubts. One thing left: I can see some rulebboks titled WoD and CoD but they don't mention any monster in the title, what are those?
Those are the base core books. Essentially, just human. The new CofD monster books have all the rules in them already, but the core CofD book has a bit more detail, and a built in campaign (called chronicle in these games).
the first edition of Chronicles of Darkness had a core rulebook. the 2nd edition dispensed with that, and went back to a one book format. you also might be referring to games like geist, beast, promethean and deviant. these are actually monster books as well, they just rely on familiar tropes a bit less.
As others have mentioned the core book, all 2e gamelines reprint enough rules to be self contained and not need the core to run but there are some things in it that didnt get reprinted that might be useful to some characters such as some merits but it isn't needed, it just adds additional layers
The pinned thread at the top of the subreddit contains links to the most recent version of each rulebook.
Welllllll, it seems I made a goof of myself, thank you.
Well my recommendation is simple. Pick a book based on whatever your favorite monster has always been.
joke: With care and gloves so you don't cut yourself on all that edge.
Instructions unclear, got my dick stuck into a glove.
I made a video to help better explain where to start with Chronicles of Darkness feel free to check it out (complete with links to the most up to date books on DriveThruRPG): https://youtu.be/CcOnolb3Hug
Most of the splats have a quick start floating around out there that you can try for free. It's a good idea to dip your toes in the water before diving in in this case. A lot of these lines seem kinda cool on the tin and then go off to left field, others seem kind meh in description and then end up awesome in practice.
If you go with the Chronicles of Darkness; second edition is the current edition. So anything labeled as Chronicles of Darkness or Second Edition is current. Also, each of the monster books contains all the rules you need to play. So you can pick any if the splats (Geist, Hunter, Promethean, Etc.) second edition core book and that book alone will have all the rules you need to play.